Saturday, November 17, 2012
Last Blast
Joe's Last Blast was read today by good friend Jeff Rubin at Joe's Celebration of Life Ceremony at Faith United Methodist Church. Thank you, everyone, who came to remember Joe. -- Jan and family
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This is not the final blast I hoped to write.
My plan was more like this: When I had been in remission for a few years, I would wrap up this writing project with some carefully crafted post about lessons learned, how going through these troubles had made me a better person, blah blah blah. It would have been witty and full of insight and written while on vacation with family in New England. Maybe it would become a book and I would go on tour.
Instead, I have to come up with something much sooner than planned, and I have to write from a very different place. I'm afraid it's going to fall short of my earlier aspirations for quality.
I am grateful for what I learned about myself and about living and about how much love and support that was in the hearts of so many who know me and my family. I do feel that the lessons would have been just as effective without this particular ending, so my gratitude is tempered.
I am happy that my writing found an audience that found it valuable. Many mentioned how much my writing about my experience with leukemia helped them or changed them, and it feels good to know I was able to do that.
Some mentioned that they didn't know I had such a great sense of humor. That hurt a little, since I always thought I was funny.
The many messages I have received all along and especially during the final phase of my illness make it clear we affect many more lives than we know. Some of it is intentional — teaching, coaching, parenting, working — but much of it is incidental, based on how we live.
I can't write a last blast without thanking the many friends, both recent and from way back, whose support has made these hard months since January 2011 much easier for me and my entire family. My family and I are so thankful.
And I am thankful to have such a supportive family, from the sibling visits (and stem cells!) to my parents practically taking up residence in Illinois as needed. And to have seen my two sons develop for an extra couple of years, and to see in both of them the ability to succeed at whatever they put their minds to.
And above all I am grateful that Jan overlooked the clumsiness of my marriage proposal, and the substitution of a treadmill for an engagement ring, and accepted me for what turned out to be 26-plus years of a rich marriage. I could not have found a better match: common interests, shared goals, different strengths, and unconditional love. She definitely got the short end of the "in sickness and in health" clause, but she has handled it beautifully.
I have noticed the coincidence between how long we've been married — 26-plus years — and the length of a marathon, an event that has percolated through our life as a couple and, in the last few years, has given Team J a lot of time working closely together, a source of joy.
26-plus... as many years as a marathon has miles, though it felt as easy as a 5K. If only we had been working on a 50-miler.
I don't know what else to say.
Enjoy the blueberries.
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Well done, Joe.
ReplyDeleteSo so sad that this is the last post I'll read from Joe, and feel privileged to have been allowed to share this marathon with him. My thanks, thoughts and every good wish for the future to Jan, your sons and your close and extended family, until he meets up with you again in the family reunion area when it's your turn to cross that final finishing line xxx
ReplyDeleteGod speed Joe.
ReplyDeleteJoe, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I knew you for only about 6 yrs but in that time I learned alot from you and your thoughts on coaching and outside of that. I enjoyed our friendship and I still do. I enjoyed getting to coach your son Jake and I know you have a great family. You were a great man and although I'm saddened to have you go, I know you are working on that 50 miler upstairs. Take care my friend and God Bless.
ReplyDeleteKobe
I'm so sorry. I just read about Joe in the Hotchkiss Alumni magazine. Those were formative years for me and I fondly remember Joe as both as teacher and coach. I cannot say how sad I am for your loss. As a precocious teen, I was a pain to Joe and the other CS teachers who had responsibility for teaching and managing the computer lab. I look back and wonder how he ever had the patience to deal? And yet he did. On the track and cross country courses, he would often inspire us by opening a serious can of whoop-ass on all of us kids, outrunning us at whatever distance we were pleased to train at! I remember one 4th of July race around Lakeville Lake where he was determined to set the record. I think he ran it in something like 24 minutes at around a 5:15 pace. The record was around 22 minutes. Subsequently, he talked to the guy who held the record (Steve Belter?) and said he wasn't sure the timing was right on the record setting run. Steve agreed with him and was pretty sure Joe had the legitimate fastest time. Never heard of anyone running it faster than that since, either. From reading his blasts, I see that he managed to continue enjoying the run right up until the end. So sad it wasn't a longer one.
ReplyDelete-Tod Shannon, Hotchkiss class of '85
I, too, just read the Hotchkiss magazine and learned of Joe's situation. So sad ... As a senior, Joe had selected me as one of his proctors to help oversee his floor of sophomores. He spent a lot of time visiting Jan, who taught at a neighboring private school, so we did see him very well. Glad that this relationship continued to blossom.
ReplyDeleteJoe had been my cross-country and track coach during my four years at Hotchkiss, and I can also attest that Joe was a great inspiration on some of our long runs -- as he loved to run from runner to runner to runner (seemingly tirelessly) coaxing us on. We didn't seem to be much of a challenge for him ... Joe was a terrific role model at the time and seemingly beyond reproach - at least to an impressionable 17 year old.
At the end of my senior year, Joe gave me a beautiful book called "The Man Who Planted Trees" -- a rather simple story about a quiet man who lived in a desolate part of the world who woke every morning to collect acorns and then proceeded to plant something like 100 or 1,000 every day ... After doing this for many years, the man passed on but left a living legacy of a forest where families and animals came to live and thrive. I am thankful for all the lives that Joe touched and the "trees" that continue on as his living legacy.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Jan, their family and all the many people that had the pleasure to know him. I, too, wish he were training for the 50 miler ...
Peace,
Chris Keller, Hotchkiss Class of '86